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AUTOMATION AND CONTROL
Fast batch dosing in filling lines
The food, pharma and beverage market offers countless opportunities for Bronkhorst High-Tech to
provide solutions for optimising dosing and filling applications. One of the trends in the beverage
market is fast batch dosing of additives. Additive dosing is a typical application in which flow
meters can be used. The article explores where this applies in the beverage industry and
why additive batch dosing has to be carried out with high speed.
The trend of small batch depending on the actual demand.
production There is a demand to be more flexible and cost efficient on many levels. In the
Traditionally, many industries make beverage industry this involves easier changeover from one flavour product to another at
large batches of one product (mass minimum cleaning. To keep the additive dosing system separated from the main product
production), and the beverage industry stream (like water), most parts of the filling line will be kept untainted from additives. This
is no exception. However, due to the will save time, cleaning liquid and therefore costs, when changing product.
development of wider product ranges and
diversification, which many companies The necessity of fast batch dosing
face, this traditional way of production Most types of filling lines produce a high output. This demands an additive dosing system
lacks the flexibility and efficiency which which provides fast batch dosing with high repeatability and accuracy. Important with fast
is often required these days. Companies batch dosing is the right amount of additive in the pre-defined dosing time. This amount
optimise their processes to be more is usually very small and a dosing time from tenths of milliseconds up to a second is not
resilient and responsive to risks. unusual in the beverage industry. To accurately dose small amounts of additives at such
Nowadays, the trend is to make batches speed can be a challenge and requires excellent flow control.
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